Valentine’s at the Graff (Holiday at the Graff Book 4) by Sinclair Jayne @sinclairjayne1 @TulePublishing #bookreview #romance

Title: Valentine’s at the Graff

Author: Sinclair Jayne

Publisher: Tule Publishing

Publication Date: February 1, 2018

Page Count: 201

My rating: 3 stars

About the book:

Marietta native Miranda Evans has yet to find her niche…until a small legacy allows her to open a gift boutique featuring local artists in the historic Graff hotel. As Valentine’s approaches, Miranda, who’s always left romance to the pages of a book, reaches out to involve the community in random acts of kindness to celebrate the month of love. Miranda has no need for hearts and flowers until the boy next door she dreamed about in high school arrives back in town more handsome, brooding, and out of reach than ever.

Orthopedic surgeon Whitman Telford blew out of his small, Montana hometown at eighteen without looking back. When he’s told to fill in for a month at Marietta’s hospital before obtaining his dream job in LA, no is not an option. After getting sucked into the Valentine project along with half the town, Witt starts to wonder if he’ll still be eager to see Marietta in his rearview mirror.

Opposites attract or so Miranda’s heard, but will she have the courage to test this theory and take a chance on romance when so much more than her heart is at stake?

Valentine’s at the Graff by Sinclair Jayne is the fourth book in the contemporary romance Holiday at the Graff series. Each book in the series features a new couple so they all may be read as standalone books if one chooses to do so. The series is set in the historic upscale Graff hotel in the charming small town of Marietta, Montana with couples being brought together that have ties to the hotel.

This installment of the series introduced Miranda and Whitman. Whitman has returned to his home town of Marietta to do a one month residency at the local hospital which is not the happiest about since once he’d left for college he really hadn’t planned on returning to the small town. Meanwhile Miranda has been busy trying to get ready to open her own shop after years of working the random jobs while taking care of family.

Now Miranda and Whitman are both rather eccentric characters in their own ways so I didn’t immediately connect with them. Whitman comes across as very much a loner who doesn’t interact well with others as he’s spent his life with only one purpose to study and become a doctor and not socializing. While Miranda is the exact opposite being very outspoken and bordering on frantic at times with her whirlwind topic changing conversations.

Now as much as their personalities didn’t pull me in immediately I really began to see how this pair seemed to compliment each other. In an obvious case of opposites attracting it was nice to see this couple find each other and find love together. The best part of the story came when they took charge of a little girl named Petal who was of course adorable.

While this installment wasn’t my favorite of the series so far it definitely fit right in and I found myself enjoying it along the way. As always too it was so nice to see a lot of Marietta regulars and the charitable side of the residents along the way. Those that have read any of the books from the many series set in this town will be sure to notice the mentions of the places and people that have become familiar in the charming town.

Sinclair has loved reading romance novels since she discovered Barbara Cartland historical romances when she was in sixth grade. By seventh grade, she was haunting the library shelves looking to fall in love over and over again with the heroes born from the imaginations of her favorite authors. After teaching writing classes and workshops to adults and teens for many years in Seattle and Portland, she returned to her first love of reading romances and became an editor for Tule Publishing last year. Sinclair lives in Oregon’s wine country where she and her family own a small vineyard of Pinot Noir and where she dreams of being able to write at a desk like Jane Austen instead of in parking lots waiting for her kids to finish one of their 12,000 extracurricular activities.

Nice review Carrie. While I don’t think I’m going to have time to read this series anytime soon, I’m glad you’re still liking it even if the MCs here weren’t your favorites.

BTW, I found a Bookouture novel I forgot to review! It was Barbara Copperthwaite’s latest and I remember reading it and liking it, but somehow forgot to review it. I’m going to try to list one this week and hope Bookouture forgives me.😰😰😰😰